Affordable Care Act no longer a subject for debate

Affordable Care Act no longer a subject for debate

President Barack Obama speaks as he stands with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and people who support the Affordable Care Act, his signature health care law, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 1. Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday in a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law.

As signs reading "Closed" were hung outside federal offices and national parks Tuesday, new health insurance exchanges opened in New York and nationwide - and business was brisk. The dichotomy was stark, and demonstrated the folly of Republican attempts to derail the Affordable Care Act by holding government operations hostage.

Like the provision allowing parents to insure their young-adult children to age 26, the exchanges are another concrete aspect of a health care law that is completing the transition from theoretical to tangible. Their initial popularity ought to convince congressional critics to finally, finally - after 40-plus House votes, a Supreme Court ruling, reelection of the president who devised it and, now, a government shutdown - drop their opposition.

After all, heath insurance marketplaces opened Tuesday not only amid an unhelpful government shutdown but despite Republican recalcitrance that required the federal government to either assist in or entirely run the exchanges in 34 states. Indeed, Republican participation in the reform has amounted to little more than tagging it with the derisive nickname "Obamacare."

That's unfortunate, because the law will need revising. There were glitches with Tuesday's opening of the health markets, and there will be glitches ahead; transformative legislation is seldom without them.

Republicans have a role in shoring up health care shortfalls. But first they need to face reality. And that's what the Affordable Care Act has long since become.